News & Notices

Peskin Building Given New Life

Post Date:12/29/2016 1:09 PM

PESKIN BUILDING GIVEN NEW LIFE

The old historic Peskin Department store building located at 21 East Athens Street in downtown Winder has been vacant for more than two decades and the building has fallen into disrepair over the past few years. The building is about to receive “new life”. A local businessman, Mr. Daniel Diaz, has acquired the 1940 building from the City and will be renovating the building.

In June of 2015, the City of Winder received ownership of the 21 East Athens Street property in an attempt to preserve or repurpose the deteriorating downtown property. The best scenario for the City of Winder was to get the building back into the hands of a private owner and let them take over this project. This was the most feasible way to preserve the historic building and add new usable commercial space to the downtown area. The City of Winder contracted with Garbutt Construction to perform an analysis of the building in 2016. The analysis was completed in early December 2016 and it was estimated that the cost for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the building would be $1,908,670.

The City issued a third request for proposal on November 23, 2016 after the first two attempts failed to receive any bids. On December 13, 2016 the City received its first and only bid for the purchase and redevelopment of the building. On December 15, 2016, the Winder City Council held a called public meeting and voted to accept the proposal from Mr. Daniel Diaz to rehab this iconic city building. Based on the proposal submitted, approximately 25% of the building would be dedicated to a restaurant with the remaining 75% to be used as commercial, office and retail space with an anticipated 18-month completion date (June 2018). The City of Winder wishes Mr. Diaz the best of luck with his project.